YUJA WANG, ANDREAS OTTENSAMER, GAUTIER CAPUÇON – Works by Sergei Rachmaninoff & Johannes Brahms

Decca (UMO) / Classics / Deutsche Grammophon

£12.56

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: 4862388
Barcode: 0028948623884
Release Date: 02 Sep 2022
Genre: Classical

Pianist Yuja Wang, clarinettist Andreas Ottensamer and cellist Gautier Capuçon have earned a reputation as a “super-trio”, having given performances worldwide that reveal the instinctive, almost telepathic bond of musical communication that exists between the three players.

Capturing the energy and intensity of sessions held at the Konzerthaus Dortmund in 2021, Works by Sergei Rachmaninoff & Johannes Brahms includes visionary interpretations of Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata Op. 19, Brahms’s Cello Sonata No.1 Op. 38 and the same composer’s Trio for piano, clarinet and cello Op. 14.

Rachmaninoff dedicated the sonata to the eminent Russian cellist Anatoliy Brandukov, who gave the first performance in Moscow with the composer himself playing the terrifyingly difficult piano part. Some 14 years older than the composer, Brandukov and Rachmaninoff were nevertheless great friends. The cellist was Rachmaninoff’s best man at his wedding and the two of them gave numerous concerts together.

When he wrote this marvellous sonata, Rachmaninoff surely could not have known that this would be his last chamber music work. From that time on, however, he would only dedicate his skills to solo piano pieces, and the larger scale orchestral and choral pieces. So this is a piece to be discovered and treasured as representing both a beginning and an end to a phase of Rachmaninoff’s career - and a testimony to a fine musical friendship.

Brahms was in his late 20s when he cultivated his distinct musical language with a series of chamber compositions. His first published duo, the Cello Sonata in E minor shows his mastery of form and invention. The work, which began life in 1862 but remained unfinished for three years, reflects the composer’s close study of J.S. Bach’s music, clearly so in its finale’s fugal writing. It also projects the cello’s warm, lyrical voice across three movements packed with strong themes and rich harmonies.

By contrast, the Clarinet Trio is a late work, written in the summer of 1891. Directly inspired by the playing of Richard Mühlfeld, the virtuosic principal clarinettist of the famous Meiningen court orchestra, it embraces the melancholy mood of an ageing composer who was considering retiring from public life and contemplating his own mortality.

TRACKLIST:

RACHMANINOFF Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 19
Lento. Allegro moderato
Allegro scherzando
Andante
Allegro mosso

BRAHMS Cello Sonata No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 38
Allegro non troppo
Allegretto quasi Menuetto
Allegro

BRAHMS Clarinet Trio in A Minor, Op. 114
Allegro
Adagio
Andantino grazioso
Allegro